Sound problem on FreeBSD 11.0

[tim1948]

After an absence of a few years, I decided to participate in FreeBSD again, installing 64-bit 11.0 on a Sabertooth board. I used KDE as the desktop environment, so after the initial installation I added xorg and kde and modified fstab and rc.conf appropriately.
Looks good. As for the sound, it played Youtube videos flawlessly, though the sound to the headphones came out of the green jack in the back of the computer. (Fedora finds it at the front jack.) Unfortunately, after the system is powered down, there is no sound after rebooting. This happened after each of two installs.
(I used Chrome as a browser and it brings pulseaudio along with it. I've read that this can be troublesome.)
I suppose I could install FreeBSD again and try to run it continuously without rebooting. This is probably an unrealistic goal, however. Otherwise, I need to find out how sound capabilities can be preserved between sessions. Does anyone have ideas?

[Bob Eager]

Do a 'kldstat'. Note the output.

Now 'kdlload sound'. That should make it work.

Now another 'kldstat' Note the differences.

Load those modules in /boot/loader.conf:

sound_load="YES"

etc.

You probably won't need ALL of those modules, but you'll see which ones
are actually necessary from the console messages. If in doubt, load them
all.



--
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[Bob Eager]

On Fri, 03 Feb 2017 09:03:38 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

> On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 22:11:14 -0800, tim1948 wrote:
>
>> After an absence of a few years, I decided to participate in FreeBSD
>> again, installing 64-bit 11.0 on a Sabertooth board. I used KDE as the
>> desktop environment, so after the initial installation I added xorg and
>> kde and modified fstab and rc.conf appropriately.
>> Looks good. As for the sound, it played Youtube videos flawlessly,
>> though the sound to the headphones came out of the green jack in the
>> back of the computer. (Fedora finds it at the front jack.)
>> Unfortunately, after the system is powered down, there is no sound
>> after rebooting. This happened after each of two installs.
>> (I used Chrome as a browser and it brings pulseaudio along with it.
>> I've read that this can be troublesome.)
>> I suppose I could install FreeBSD again and try to run it continuously
>> without rebooting. This is probably an unrealistic goal, however.
>> Otherwise, I need to find out how sound capabilities can be preserved
>> between sessions. Does anyone have ideas?
>
> Do a 'kldstat'. Note the output.
>
> Now 'kdlload sound'. That should make it work.

Sorry. Typo. I was in a hurry!

kldload sound

[tim1948]

Apparently the sound module is already loaded. I have included /dev/sndstat, perhaps it is possible that the system is trying to use the wrong device for sound output. If so can it be redirected?

root@robert:/usr/home/robert # kldstat
Id Refs Address Size Name
1 28 0xffffffff80200000 1fa7c38 kernel
2 1 0xffffffff82711000 3710 ums.ko
3 1 0xffffffff82715000 4fac ng_ubt.ko
4 5 0xffffffff8271a000 befc netgraph.ko
5 1 0xffffffff82726000 a58f ng_hci.ko
6 3 0xffffffff82731000 107c ng_bluetooth.ko
7 1 0xffffffff82733000 2a05 uhid.ko
8 1 0xffffffff82736000 10ad6 snd_uaudio.ko
9 1 0xffffffff82747000 d57d ng_l2cap.ko
10 1 0xffffffff82755000 1b187 ng_btsocket.ko
11 1 0xffffffff82771000 393d ng_socket.ko

root@robert:/usr/home/robert # kldload sound
kldload: can't load sound: module already loaded or in kernel
root@robert:/usr/home/robert # cat /dev/sndstat
Installed devices:
pcm0: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm1: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm2: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm3: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm4: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm5: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm6: <Realtek ALC892 (Rear Analog 7.1/2.0)> (play/rec) default
pcm7: <Realtek ALC892 (Front Analog)> (play/rec)
pcm8: <Realtek ALC892 (Rear Digital)> (play)
pcm9: <Realtek ALC892 (Onboard Digital)> (play)
pcm10: <USB audio> (rec)
No devices installed from userspace.

[Bob Eager]

Yes. The clues as to which numbers to use are in the sndstat output.

sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=5

(or whatever number seems appropriate).

When you have the right one, put it in /etc/sysctl.conf:

hw.snd.default_unit=5